


a gingerbread summer

by tkreyesevandiaz



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: A Lot of Things Are Going On, A lot of Christmas, Attempt at Humor, Baking, Because this is me, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Movies, Christopher Diaz is a National Treasure, Decorating, Domestic Fluff, Embedded Images, Family Fluff, First Kiss, Gen, I Don't Even Know, M/M, POV Alternating, Slight Amounts of Angst, Soft Boys, Soft Eddie Diaz, Soft Evan "Buck" Buckley, There's No Toxic Masculinity In This House, These boys are disasters, we been knew
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:41:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26108134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tkreyesevandiaz/pseuds/tkreyesevandiaz
Summary: Eddie and Christopher call Buck over to join them for a Sunday morning treat, and as realizations unfold, new traditions are made.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley & Christopher Diaz & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Comments: 31
Kudos: 295





	a gingerbread summer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oneawkwardcookie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneawkwardcookie/gifts).



> This is purely Anam's fault. By far. 
> 
> I have researched this to the death because I don't know what gingerbread is, but she said that she had to wait until winter for it. That's a straight lie, so here we are, gifted to her because she'd requested this sensory prompt.
> 
> A very big thank you to everyone I asked about gingerbread because I wanted it to be accurate and an extra-big thank you to Katie for choosing the first movie xD Somehow this turned into 5k of something so.
> 
> **35\. Blowing a raspberry on someone's skin**

“Um...Eddie?”

“Yes, Buck?”

“Chris?”

The kid giggled from his perch on the center island. “Yes, Bucky?”

“Is that what I think it is?”

Of all the things Buck expected coming into the Diaz household Sunday morning, this wasn’t anywhere close to the radar.

“Yup,” Eddie popped the ‘p’ — all while grinning widely, hands still caked in flour.

“Dad told Siri to FaceTime you,” Chris told him, pointing to where Eddie’s phone was lying haphazardly on the counter.

“Did he now,” Buck muttered absently as he took in all the stuff scattered across the counters. He had never seen so much sugar in the Diaz household at one given time, ever. 

There were bags of multi-colored frosting — the fancy piping ones that Maddie liked — gumdrops, M&M’s, licorice sticks, candy canes, peppermint candies, sour gummy stripes, _rainbow_ stripes, a random assortment of sprinkles, chocolate chips, and some gold-foil wrapped Hershey’s Kisses. 

“Dude, this is cavity-central,” he said. Turning to Chris, he widened his eyes dramatically. “Your dad’s trying to give us cavities _and_ diabetes.”

“I’ve already laid down the law on the sugar consumption in this house,” Eddie rolled his eyes, pointing towards a folded piece of cloth in the corner. “Put that on, you’re helping out today.”

Buck threw the apron on without question, reaching around to tie the strings. Christopher burst out laughing immediately, which made him stop and look down at himself.

Peeling it off, he pinched the fabric between two fingers and read the front of it.

_Check meowt_

__

“What the…” he trailed off, looking up at Eddie’s smug face with a bewildered look. That’s when he took in the words on his apron.

_Caution: Hot Dad_

Well, he couldn’t argue with that.

“You get _that_ one and you stuck me with this one?” Buck gestured wildly, shaking the apron at his best friend.

“It’s the only other one I have!”

“What happened to the other one, the plain one I used last Christmas?”

“I have no idea. Couldn’t find it this morning, so you’re stuck with either that, or a bunch of ingredients on your clothes,” Eddie shrugged. Buck turned to Christopher for help, only to find him shrugging, too.

Christopher was clad in his own mini apron over a pair of Christmas pajamas, even though he wasn’t really baking anything. The tiny, child-size apron read:

_In this house, 2 rules apply:_

  * _I’m the boss_
  * _See rule #1_



Buck burst out laughing at how true it was; Christopher really was the boss in this house.

Case in point, his first demand. “Come on, Bucky, put the apron on! You have to help Dad bake these so we can make a house.” 

“What the boss says, goes,” Eddie smirked again, looking far too pleased with himself.

“I’ll get you back for this,” Buck muttered, pulling the loop over his head again and reaching behind himself to tie the strings tightly. Christopher reached forward from his perch to smooth a crease down, already leaving a smudge of flour behind, despite being a whole counter top away from the dough. Buck shook his head and turned to the head chef. “What do you need me to do?”

“Mix another batch of the dough,” Eddie instructed, pointing to where the recipe book laid open.

Buck got right to it, throwing butter into a mixing bowl and turning the electric mixer on. “I didn’t even know you owned one of these.”

Eddie snorted, leaning past him to pick up the plastic wrap. “I don’t. You brought that over last Christmas and left it here.”

“Is that why I’m slaving away with you and my favourite Diaz on a Sunday morning? Because I left this mixer here?” 

Eddie refused to rise to the bait about him not being Buck's favourite, instead choosing to roll his eyes. “I mean, you’re getting gingerbread out of it and we’re getting a day with you out of it. Is it really slaving if we’re all working?” They both paused, looking at Christopher who was doing...nothing but scrolling through Eddie’s phone to find something to play.

Sensing their stare, the kid looked up. “What? The music is the best part!”

Buck laughed, feeling way too warm at Eddie’s easy admission as he added the brown sugar and molasses to the mixing bowl. He watched the ingredients come together as Christopher’s excited squeal sounded behind him, a second before the sounds of Miley Cyrus’ _Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree_ filled the kitchen.

Eddie leaned over to crack an egg and pour vanilla into the bowl, grinning widely for Christopher’s singing behind them.

“Why are we bringing Christmas back into July?” Buck whispered, pulling a laugh out of him.

“He wanted it,” he said simply, shrugging as he whisked together the dry ingredients, shoulder pressed against Buck’s own. He stared at the side of his best friend’s face, thinking himself stupid to have even asked the question.

Of course they were doing it because Christopher wanted to — Eddie did everything he could to make his son’s dreams come true, and if his son wanted to bake gingerbread to the sounds of Christmas in the middle of an LA summer, then he was damn well going to make it happen.

“Christopher’s lucky he’s got you,” Buck let slip, looking back down at the gooey mixture, clearing his throat as a flush spread across the back of his neck. Eddie fell still next to him, but Buck could feel his gaze on the side of his face, probing curiously.

“Thanks,” he whispered when Buck looked up, letting him see that he meant it. It was always a struggle for Eddie to accept that he was a good dad, but Buck could try to help any way he could.

Turning the mixer off, he grabbed the spatula to scrape the sides of the bowl, faintly registering that the song had changed into something he didn’t recognize.

Eddie poured a part of the dry ingredients into the bowl. “Fold those in first and then turn the mixer on so they don’t blow up in your face.”

Buck did as he was told, not wanting a repeat of last Christmas. There had been flour caked in his hair and on his face, and in his nose and ears for what felt like _days_ — even though he knew it probably hadn’t even been a full twenty minutes. Eddie and Christopher had keeled over with the force of their laughter, shoving him towards the shower.

He smiled at the memory now. It had been how he’d found out that Eddie was _amazing_ at baking. For as much of a disaster he was with the stove, he was a magician at baking — even if he didn’t own a mixer of his own. 

Eddie’s hidden talent became another one of the inside secrets between the three of them. To Buck, being a part of that was one of the most important things in the world to him. Nothing was going to beat the feeling of coming home every time he joined Eddie and Christopher for the most mundane activities.

“Okay, this is done,” he said, passing the bowl over to Eddie and unplugging the mixer. Buck watched as Eddie cut the dough in half with a plastic knife before plopping it down on the prepared plastic wrap, looking skeptically at it. “Wait, is it supposed to look like that?”

“You’ve made this before, Bucky,” Chris reminded him.

“Yeah but…”

Eddie waved him off reassuringly. “Yup, it’s going to look like this before it firms up. We’ve got at least three hours to kill while these rest, so...Chris, why don’t you go put on a movie?” Buck had the cleaner hands, so he lifted Chris down carefully and helped him out of the boss-proclaiming apron, watching him skitter off, happily shouting about Christmas movies.

“Did I miss something? This Christmas thing seems to have come out of nowhere.” He turned back to Eddie, looking confusedly at him.

“Some kids at camp were talking about their Christmas vacations,” Eddie explained, stacking the mixing bowls up. “He got to go to the firehouse and everything, and there were those gingerbread houses with Denny but it wasn’t the one he wanted. So we decided to just do it now just in case we get scheduled this year, and called you over.”

Buck stayed quiet as he disengaged the whisks from the mixer, dropping them in one of the now-soaking bowls. His heart swelled in his chest and his throat closed up from the sheer feeling of being included.

In tandem, they cleared the kitchen, doing a cursory wipe-down of the counters. Eddie set out to make hot chocolate while Buck popped the popcorn, mind racing all the while.

The past few Christmases, no matter what job he’d had, he’d made sure to schedule himself in to work. Maddie hadn’t been there and his parents sure as hell hadn’t — he didn’t see the point of wasting the day when he could get paid instead. He’d been on his own, and though Christmas was meant to be a time of cheer, at the time, he just didn’t see it. 

People around them would be milling around with their families, and he’d be standing in the crowd, all alone. It made him happy to see other people happy, but he would miss his sister like crazy during the holidays, and the only solution in his mind was to throw himself into work.

The first Christmas with Maddie back in his life hadn’t been magical at all; she’d been too traumatized by Doug, and Buck hadn’t quite understood _why_ because the two of them were too busy lashing out at one another. 

The next Christmas had been at the firehouse, and that _had_ been magical. Every single person’s life had changed in ways that they wouldn’t have imagined, just in the course of one year. Even if they were working, they’d managed to have one meal with all of them as a big extended family.

But standing here, in Eddie’s kitchen again, meant something a lot different to him. 

For years, holidays hadn’t meant anything outside another regular day, maybe accompanied with overtime pay for working. Buck would see family and friends sitting together, seeing each other for the first time in months, every single face alight with a joy he wasn’t sure he remembered. He’d long to see Maddie, would call her number only to get an unresponsive number, send her cards only for them to go unreturned. 

So yeah, the holidays had lost their magic over the years. 

Seeing Christopher’s happiness at the simple act of making gingerbread or picking out a Christmas movie...it only made Buck long for this to be real, forever. Because he knew that he’d never be able to let the Diaz boys go, no matter what capacity he got to stay in their life as.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, facing the microwave and decidedly not where Eddie was standing at the stove. “It means a lot to me, just to be here.”

“It means a lot for you to be here,” Eddie replied, his voice steady, meaningful and instant.

Buck smiled at the response. That was another one of those things about Eddie; he would clam up outside the four walls of this home, but there was something about being in his own space that made him more open to say things that flitted through his mind.

Buck loved that about him.

“Ready?” he asked, turning to where Eddie was pouring the piping hot drink into three mugs.

“Just a second,” he said, grabbing the whipped cream and topping the glasses off.

“We’re gonna have a sugar-high kid on our hands,” Buck shook his head, laughing as he emptied the popcorn into a bowl and grabbed a few napkins. He picked up Christopher’s mug, heading out to join the kid on the floor in front of the couch. “What’d you choose, buddy?”

“ _The Polar Express_!” he said excitedly, reaching for his mug. 

“Careful, it’s hot,” he warned, passing it to him. Eddie came around to the other side of his son, handing Buck his mug.

“Have you watched this?” he directed the question at Buck, settling down cross-legged.

“Yup. It was a sure-shot Christmas movie when I was little. I think...a year or two older than Chris. Maddie and I used to watch it every year.” He cut the story short after that, not wanting to think about the first year they didn’t. “I haven’t watched it in a few years.”

“Do you remember anything?” Chris asked curiously.

Buck laughed. “I do. Some things are a little hazy, but I guess it’s a good thing we’re watching it now.”

Eddie pressed play on the remote, the three of them shifting closer to reach the popcorn bowl as the opening scene played.

As the movie went on, all three of them were almost hooked, not wanting to move for a second. Buck remembered all the years he and Maddie had spent doing this same thing, all up until her senior year of college.

That year, he’d tried to watch it on his own, but he couldn’t. He’d missed Maddie so much, his parents had gone to a Christmas party and left him at home, and a thirteen-year-old Evan had spent the entire night thinking about how unfair all of it was, and how he was so _mad_ at Maddie for leaving him alone like that.

He didn’t try to watch it again; not until now.

Buck jostled out of his thoughts with the warm press of a hand on his shoulder. He turned to find Eddie looking at him worriedly. A quick glance down at Christopher proved that he was still engrossed in the movie.

Taking a deep breath, Buck smiled and shook his head, turning away to sip the now-cool drink. 

Eddie kept his hand there, stretched across the couch, silently grounding him. Around halfway into the story, Christopher leaned against his side, cuddling in immediately. 

Buck wrapped an arm around him and leaned into Eddie’s, thanking his lucky stars that he got to have this.

_“At one time most of my friends could hear the bell. But as years passed, it fell silent for all of them. Even Sarah found, one Christmas, that she could no longer hear its sweet sound. Though I've grown old, the bell still rings for me... as it does for all who truly believe.”_

Buck was totally unashamed at the fact that he was crying at both the movie and the nostalgia, but a glance over at Eddie showed that even he was a little teary-eyed. Christopher too, for the way he was sniffling.

The kid moved a little, peering up at him with wide eyes. “Hey, Buck?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you still hear the bells?”

He froze at the question, staring down at the adorable face he’d come to love beyond measure, trying to find a suitable enough answer. Out of the periphery of his vision, he could see Eddie move, probably to interject.

Waving his best friend off, Buck smiled softly at Chris. “Just like the boy in the movie, I stopped hearing them for a while, too.”

“Did they come back?”

“Yeah. Yeah, they did,” Buck said, tweaking Chris’ nose. The kid had restored his faith in Christmas last year by sweetly asking if he could spend Christmas with him, even if it had broken his heart into a million pieces to have to say no. Lifting the kid, Buck blew a raspberry on his face, inciting a set of giggles that warmed him faster than the hot chocolate had. “You helped me with that, you know?”

Chris beamed widely, settling back down and starting a steady stream of conversation about bells and trains and conductors. Buck chanced a look upwards to find Eddie staring at _both_ of them with the softest look that he’d ever seen.

To be on the receiving end of that look, the one usually reserved for Christopher, kind of shook the ground beneath him for a moment and made him think...maybe he already had this. Something that was just his for the taking.

“Buck, are you listening?” Christopher said, breaking him and Eddie out of whatever trance they’d fallen into. 

“Yeah buddy, sorry.” Buck looked back down at him, ruffling his hair apologetically.

“Can we watch another movie?” he asked, peering up at his dad. 

Eddie checked his phone before nodding. “Yeah, we’ve got another hour or so until the dough’s ready.” He picked up all the mugs and the empty bowl before retreating into the kitchen.

As Buck watched him go, he couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to take that chance for real.

* * *

Eddie was going to lose it.

It was ridiculous really — all these months of knowing how unabashedly Buck adored and loved Christopher, and knowing what high regard Christopher held Buck to, moments like these shouldn’t surprise him anymore.

But hearing Buck so easily admit that Christopher had helped him believe in Christmas again...Eddie had to have done something amazing in his life to deserve these two boys.

He set the mugs down on the window sill, keeping them away from the full sink. 

All three of them had been designed by Christopher at some point. There was his own, with haphazardly placed stickers to spell ‘Christopher.’ Eddie smiled at the memory of his son coming home with it, complaining about how many letters were in his name.

 _“There are_ eleven _letters_ , _Dad! Why is my name so_ long _?!”_

There was Eddie’s, with ‘Dad’ written in Chris’ handwriting, random baseball stickers around the pale blue ceramic and a big heart with ‘I love you’ in the middle. It was one of Eddie’s most prized possessions.

Then there was Buck’s own, made a couple months later after Christopher insisted that Buck needed to have a mug here, too.

His was also pale blue, but it had ‘Buck’ written on it, with firefighter stickers and a surfboard. It also had the same heart sticker that was on Eddie’s, and when Christopher had presented it to Buck, Eddie could’ve sworn the other man’s eyes had glimmered with tears.

It was this unbarred love that got Eddie caught up in his head every time, something Buck freely gave over to Christopher without any inhibitions. 

He _wanted_ this. He wanted all of it — making gingerbread in July, watching movies over and over again, coming home to the feeling of contentment at just being able to wrap himself up in his boys and forget the hell out of the bad days.

The more and more moments like these passed between him and his best friend, the more Eddie pined for something that he wasn’t quite sure he deserved. But a larger, newer part of him told him to go for it, to take the chance.

Shaking the thoughts off, he quickly popped another batch of popcorn and sat back down where Christopher and Buck were still seated on the floor.

“What’re we watching now?”

“ _The Grinch_!” they exclaimed in unison.

Eddie mock-groaned exaggeratedly, because they watched that movie every three weeks, like clockwork. At this point, he saw green furry Grinches in his dreams on the regular, and no matter how amused Frank was at the thought, it was _not_ normal.

He told the two co-conspirators the very same.

“Your dad’s being melodramatic again,” Buck complained to Christopher, leading to a firm admonishing by his very own son. Buck smirk told him that he'd exacted his revenge for the apron.

“I see how it is, boss-man,” Eddie muttered, mussing up his son’s hair. He set the bowl of popcorn on the kid’s lap as Buck started up the movie.

“Cindy Lou Who is my icon,” Buck admired after the girl crashed into The Grinch, leading to a fit of laughter from all three of them at the unexpected declaration.

“You know, Benedict Cumberbatch voiced The Grinch in this version?” Eddie added once they calmed down a little.

“Who’s that?” he asked absently, reaching for a piece of popcorn.

Eddie and Christopher both turned to gape at him. “Buck, we’ve watched this movie a thousand times.”

“Well, yeah but how am I supposed to know who the dude is?”

Christopher let out a snort, patting Buck’s side placatingly. “Now you do.”

The rest of the movie passed by in relative silence, broken by a few sniffles from Christopher and Buck where they were huddled together in a blanket burrito of feelings. 

Somehow, the blanket had gone from being wrapped around all three of them to being wrapped right around Buck and Christopher’s heads and bodies. Both of them were sitting cross-legged, staring wide-eyed at the screen while tufts of hair stuck out of the top of the blanket. 

It was an amusing image, one Eddie secretly snapped a picture of, setting it as his wallpaper immediately. He shook his head and got up to check on the dough, laughing to himself at the sheer ridiculousness of his son and best friend.

He pulled out one of the discs of dough, finding it firm enough to work with. Tugging his apron over his head, he called out, “Boys! Let’s get to making these cookies!”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Buck skidded into the kitchen, blanket-clad Christopher on his back, both of them giggling widely.

“Alright, what are we doing now?” 

Eddie directed both of them to wash their hands before preheating the oven. He helped Christopher tie his apron while Buck tied his own. This time, Eddie sat Christopher down in one of the high chairs, just tall enough for him to reach the counter top. 

The kid spread the flour with a flourish, making all of them grateful they were wearing something to protect their clothes.

“We’re not going to make a whole gingerbread house,” Chris informed Buck. “There have to be gingerbread men.”

“So just a small one, then?” Buck raised an eyebrow, picking up the baking sheets to line with parchment. 

“Yeah, a mini one,” Eddie answered, rolling the dough out. “This one won’t stay up to make those six-inch tall houses.” Hopefully, they’d be able to get this done before it turned too sticky.

Christopher went to town almost as soon as the dough was in a weird quarter-inch thick oval, almost forgetting to flour the cookie cutters before pressing them into the sheet. Buck moved the cut cookies over to the parchment, lining them up.

Like that, they rolled and re-rolled the dough to work with over and over again, moving like a well-oiled machine. By the time the fourth disc of dough came around, Eddie’s bad wrist was screaming from the exertion.

Buck clearly saw him wince, because he not-so-gently shoved Eddie away, pointing him towards where the first batch was done.

“It smells so good!” Chris shrieked as soon as he opened the oven door. The scent of molasses, allspice, cinnamon filled the kitchen, leaving them feeling festive in the middle of the summer. He carefully set the hot trays on the counter opposite to where Buck and Christopher were preparing the last sheet. 

“Okay, this is rolled out. Do you have stencils or something to cut this into shape?”

“Not that small, no. We’re going to have to eyeball it.”

Now, thankfully for them, running into burning buildings taught them a few things about houses and stability, so they pulled on that to cut out small rectangles for the side walls, proportionate back and front walls, and an appropriately-sized roof.

“We have to make a chimney, too,” Chris decided, looking at the dough riddled with rectangles and trapezoids cut out with a pizza cutter.

“How do we make that?” 

“We re-roll this and then just cut four tiny rectangles,” Buck said, crumpling the dough up. Rolling it out again, they mapped out four rectangles and cut those out, making two of those into a banner shape so it would fit over the edge of the roof. With the remaining dough, they cut more gingerbread men out.

“At this point, the house is going to be more icing and less cookie,” Eddie muttered as he slid the tray into the oven. “Okay, that’s done. Let’s put all of these gingerbread people on the rack to cool.” 

“Are we really going to need all of these decorations?” Buck asked, looking at the far counter where the bowls of candy were arranged.

“Eh, probably not,” he shrugged. 

“But we have to try,” Christopher insisted. The two of them agreed instantly, exchanging an amused look above the kid’s head.

And try, they did. They left to finish the movie so the cookies could cool completely, but as soon as they were ready, they had the paramount task of decorating nearly 40 cookies — and all of them had to be decorated in different ways, according to Christopher.

“It shouldn’t be that hard with all this candy you’ve got stored here,” Buck mumbled to him privately as Chris turned the Christmas playlist again. Eddie whooshed out a breath and started passing the cookies down the line.

It took them a good hour and a half to get through all of the gingerbread men. There were some with sour ribbons for scarfs, M&M’s for eyes and buttons (Eddie thought those looked a little creepy, not that he’d ever admit it), some plain iced with white squiggles. At one point, Eddie crushed up a few of the peppermint candies to sprinkle over a line of white icing for a makeshift scarf. 

One of them was decorated like a very messy rendition of a firefighter, two others like paramedics for Buck and Eddie to take into work for Bobby, Hen and Chimney. Three cookies ended up representing Buck, Eddie and Christopher, decorated with appropriately colored frosting for their hair and eyes. Buck laughed loudly when Christopher dotted his with two pink marks above the left eye to represent his birthmark.

It was honestly the most fun they’d had in a while, and by the end of it, although their hands were sticky and faces somewhat covered in icing and candy dust, they were proud of the cookies they’d made.

“No wait, we need pictures of this,” Buck clicked a few of the cookies drying on the counter, and then of Chris and Eddie with their dirty aprons and sticky hands.

“You have to get in here too,” Eddie said, walking over to the sink to quickly wash his hands so he could pick up Buck’s phone and extend it for a selfie. They grinned and made silly faces, documenting the day.

The house, it turned out, was a whole other ballpark. No matter what way they arranged it, it wasn’t sturdy enough to stay up. At one point, just like Eddie had predicted, the house was made up of more icing and less of anything else, tilting on its side.

“I say we just eat them,” he declared in defeat. “I mean, I think we got a pretty good turnout with those, right?” He gestured over to where the gingerbread men were spread out.

“Yeah!” Christopher grabbed a piece and stuffed it in his mouth, grinning widely around the bite that looked like it was more frosting than cookie.

“Gross,” Eddie wrinkled his nose, looking fondly down at his son. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Looking at all that icing makes me nauseous.” Buck raised an eyebrow, staring skeptically at the monstrosity they’d tried to make on one of the baking trays.

“Let’s take some of it off, so this guy doesn’t start bouncing off the walls.” Eddie directed a warning look Christopher’s way, pulling a piece apart and scraping all the frosting off.

Once they had all the pieces in front of them, now without frosting, Eddie let Chris pick another small piece before he and Buck grabbed one each. The rest of them went into a small bowl for them to eat later. 

“Okay, go to the bathroom and wash your hands before you do anything else,” he said to Christopher, who was already vying to get out of the kitchen to escape cleaning duty.

“He made his escape,” Buck commented, laughing lightly as he moved around Eddie to grab the icing-drenched tray.

“Oh, I knew what he was doing,” he snorted. “He does it every time we bake anything together. There just isn’t much he can safely clean, so I let him go.” Buck stared at him, a strange look in his eyes. “What?”

“You’re a really good dad, Eddie, you know that?”

Eddie flushed, looking away. That was the second time today that Buck had repeated the same words. But he also knew that Buck was speaking as someone who’d envied all these things, and to have his best friend think he was a good dad was validating in a way that Eddie hadn’t known he’d needed.

Not that he needed Buck to confirm it for him, but it was nice that the person who meant the world to him after Christopher thought so.

“Thanks,” he said quietly, absolutely sure his heart was laid out bare for Buck to read his own name in bright, bold letters, stamped right along Christopher’s. 

Eddie turned to wrap up the candy that they hadn’t touched, grimacing a little at the texture of the sugar on his hands. He vaguely sensed Buck carefully moving the cookies to the far counter so they could set relatively untouched.

His gaze landed on the Hershey’s Kisses, the sparkly foil glinting in the kitchen light. They hadn’t ended up using any of them because they were too big to decorate the gingerbread men with, but suddenly, Eddie was struck with an idea.

Before he could chicken out, he turned around. “Hey, Buck?”

“Hmm?” he said, looking over at him.

“Wanna kiss?” Eddie grinned, holding up one of the gold-foil wrapped chocolates. He’d done it; he took the plunge, felt the freeing dip of his stomach, but now, nervousness began to set in as Buck studied him quietly.

It was clear that Eddie wasn’t asking about the chocolate, but before he could say anything to confirm that, Buck only laughed, walking forward to tug him closer.

“Of all the things in the world, and everything we’ve been through, you’re really gonna ask me like a teenage boy with a backup plan?”

“Hey, the opportunity presents itself,” he laughed, pressing his lips to Buck’s smiling ones. They were both laughing too hard for it to be a proper kiss, but as first ones went, it wasn’t all that bad.

Eddie pulled back to look at Buck, who was looking at him with a lazy smile, content and happy. 

“You know, I _definitely_ agree with this,” he said, tapping Eddie’s chest were 'Hot Dad' was written.

Eddie laughed, “I’ll be sure to let Sophia know, it was a gag gift from her. So was the one you’re wearing.”

“Your sister buys innuendo aprons?” 

“Nah, she just likes to annoy us all with them because they’re actually practical, unlike other gag gifts. Jokes on her, because I _love_ this one. It has _pockets!_ ”

Buck hummed his agreement with a smirk. Eddie laughed again, stepping forward and wrapping his arms around Buck’s back.

Their second kiss was more subdued, warm and comfortable. Not for the first time, Eddie felt the feeling of coming home burn through his chest, vibrant and unique. It wasn’t earth-shattering; rather, it was like slipping right into place, smoothing over the frayed edges of him.

Buck’s hands moved down to his waist, while Eddie dragged his up to cup the back of his neck, freezing when he felt something on his palms.

“You got icing on my shirt, didn’t you,” Buck muttered against his lips. He cringed at the feel of fabric fuzz on his hands, immediately pulling away from him to stare down at them. 

“Yup.”

As Buck let out a loud hoot of laughter while Eddie scrubbed at his hands furiously, trying to dispel them of the disgusting texture, he thought to himself that this was a tradition they were going to have to make for their family.

_A gingerbread summer._

**Author's Note:**

>  _The Grinch_ was my choice, I _love_ that movie because it reminds me of my friend <3 Also y'all can thank CJ for Eddie's POV lmao.
> 
> Toxic Masculinity who?
> 
> [Gingerbread Cookies Recipe](https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/best-gingerbread-cookies/) and [Gingerbread House Recipe](https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/gingerbread-house/)
> 
> Kudos and Comments make my day, so thank you to everyone who leaves them! I love hearing what you guys think, and anyone who takes time out of their day to comment has my heart and soul <3
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at [zeethebooknerd](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/zeethebooknerd) or on Twitter at [tkreyesevandiaz](https://twitter.com/tkreyesevandiaz).


End file.
